


Snakes in the Garden

by nymja



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Extended Tumblr Fill, F/M, Rating may go up, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-02-11
Packaged: 2018-05-14 06:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5733157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nymja/pseuds/nymja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four severe burns. Two bruised ribs. Massive smoke inhalation. A concussion.<br/>Three broken ribs. A shattered clavicle. An amputated leg. One, long wound from a lightsaber</p><p>This is the price they paid to bring Kylo Ren back alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A long and bumpy attempt at a redemption arc ahead!! Done initially as a tumblr fill for: things you said when you thought I was asleep.

Rey wakes up slowly, her chest tight with pain. Her eyes still closed, she tries to take stock of her body—her aching hands and arms, which are pulled tight with strained muscle. The throbbing burns on her shoulder and side, the places she can’t feel at all. Her mouth is dry, but without seeing, she senses him by her side—she can almost make out the image: hands folded, elbows resting on the edge of her bed.

Rey coughs, and cracks open her eyelids.

Finn’s forehead is resting on his hands. She wets her lips, and summons out a croak with whatever little energy she has.

“Hey.”

His head shoots up, and the smile that breaks across his face could threaten her best flashlight. He immediately goes to grab her hand, stilling his movements just enough to not cause any extra pain. At seeing his eyes fill with tears, Rey’s own vision goes blurry. Finn traces his thumb across her bloodied knuckles.

“You, uh,” he says in a thick voice, “You took your time. Had me worried, there, for a second.”

Rey coughs again, though less intensely than the first one. “Just …a second?”

Finn’s lips quirk into a grin. “All you gave me time for. Force healing sounds like a neat trick.”

She tries to smile, but the use of the word “Force” makes her pause. Rey gives a swallow. “How’d I do?”

Her friend gives her a sympathetic look. “Better than him.”

“Then he’s-?”

“Yeah, Rey. He’s here.”

Her hand goes slack in his.

\--

Four severe burns. Two bruised ribs. Massive smoke inhalation. A concussion.

Three broken ribs. A shattered clavicle. An amputated leg. One, long severe burn from a lightsaber that perforated internal organs.

This is the price they paid to bring Kylo Ren back alive.

\--

Rey is on bedrest for two more days before she’s allowed to walk around. She’s had visitors—Finn, BB-8, and Poe most frequently, but others too. Testor, Snap, Chewie, even Leia managed time to see her for an hour yesterday.

They hadn’t talked much. The General had only held her hand, and with a soft voice had told her thank you. Rey doesn’t know how she feels about it. Beyond the simple, uncomplicated fact that she is happy to have made Leia happy.

Luke is the first person she hails on the console. And he’s the one who suggests, tentatively, that she visits the man who has not yet woken up.

\--

It’s another day before she manages to follow Luke’s advice. Rey’s one of the few people allowed clearance to the med center now. And the first thing she notices is just how much it’s changed in the span of less than a week. Immediately, there’s the guards, standing in pairs outside of its entrance. Next, the countless amounts of surveillance equipment. It’s a stark contrast to the med bay she remembers—the one that had smiling nurses and patient doctors.

It’s more of a prison. Rey takes a few unsteady steps before she nods to the guards, who let her in without much fuss. Once she’s past the door, her eyes pointedly wander at anything that’s not the man lying on a medtable nearly dead center in the room. All the sharp or heavy things that can be thrown have been bolted down or removed. There’s more surveillance equipment here, and only one medical personnel on staff—no med droid at all.

She takes a moment, before she leans against the wall furthest from him and stares. He’s unconscious or asleep, his body in a generic, grey tunic and pants. Her arm crosses her stomach, as her opposite shoulder leans against the stone. She watches him breathe.

His chest rises, falls. Repeats. Slow, little movements that make her stomach tie into knots. The feeling doesn’t disappear as she looks at the rest of him: lacerations, burn markings, and a neatly amputated leg from the knee down. Cut off by a lightsaber.

All her fault. All what had to happen in order to bring Kylo Ren back to the Resistance base. She doesn’t feel guilty about his injuries– those, she knows, were the cost of defense and she won’t regret that. Not now. Not for one instant.

But she does  _feel_ something. Though she doesn’t know the name to put to it. It’s not regret. It’s not even sorrow. It’s something that exists in the place between what she knows she has to do and how she wishes things could be. 

“You idiot,” she finally settles on, running the heel of her hand under her eye. “You do all this and-” her voice falters, goes softer. “And you cause so much pain. That’s all you do. When you could…” Rey folds her other arm across her stomach. “You could have been _anyone_ else. Anyone else in the  _entire_ universe.”

He doesn’t answer her. Of course he doesn’t. Rey’s nails bite into her palms.

“I don’t want to fight you,” she concedes. “And I don’t want to hurt you, or anyone, more than I already have.” Resolve builds in her, as she looks once more at the leg she took from him. “But I don’t get to decide who I am, when you’re what you are. So you’re taking that, too.”

Rey swallows, and steps away from the wall. She crosses the room, until she’s almost right by his bedside. He looks worse up close, though his readings are stable. Hesitantly, she traces his fingers–scabbed, broken–with her own. 

“When you wake up,” she whispers, “ _Try.”_

She withdraws her hand, leaving the room without another word or glance.

Behind her, Kylo Ren’s fingers slowly curl into a fist.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for some medical pain/description!

He wakes up to pain, the sound of whirs and ticks. His hand is still in a loose fist, and when he tries to open his eyes, he can only focus on the one, bright light hovering directly over his face.

His body comes alive in parts—first, he feels his chest: it’s tight, breathing is a motion that _aches._ Next he becomes aware of his hands: they are numb and heavy, and a pinching sting is embedded in one—a needle. After that, his stomach: bruised, weak, strained.

Finally, his legs. Kylo curls his toes-

-and only one set follows his instruction.

He breathes in deep, which causes a flare of agony across his shoulders, and swallows. Tries again.

Only five move.

He closes his eyes.

\--

He remembers. The shifting terrain, a low strike. The smell of burned flesh. Falling to the ground, half of his face buried in mud. Her hazel eyes widening.

\--

When he wakes up for the third time, he doesn’t try to _feel_ anything. Instead he looks around, as much as his restrained position will allow him.

He’s in a med room, and though his body is in agony and his mind is foggy, he tries to _see_ it—to experience it through the Force as he was once taught.

There is only one person in the room with him, a woman. Like crawling on all fours, he forces his will to extend, to brush against hers.

Although he can’t turn his head, he can tell that she’s standing on the opposite side of the med room, that her hands are holding a clipboard. He sees her presence in his mind—older, dark hair. _Kalonia._

Kylo Ren tries to swallow, his mouth tasting like the chemicals of antiseptic and the irons of blood. He knows what he means to command: “You are going to undo my restraints, and remove me from the equipment.” But the message is distorted and odd when he manages it.

Kalonia’s grip tenses, he feels it as though it were his own. Kylo’s voice is a croak. He breathes through his nose—something is blocking his air.

“Remove…equipment,” he tries once more. Clearer. _Stronger._

He hears the doctor set the chart down, then the sound of her boots cross the floor. In a few moments, she stands over him and he looks straight at her, meeting intelligent grey eyes that are embedded in a vacant expression.

“Remove.” He swallows. “ _Equipment._ ”

She gives no acknowledgment of his command, but her hands start moving as though on autopilot. She hits a button. Undoes something on his neck. The sting in his hand intensifies, then vanishes.

Kylo Ren flexes it, then holds it up.

Kalonia freezes.

“Tell me…why…” he breathes. “Speak.”

Her eyes flutter. “Ventilator.”

“Remove.”

He can’t hold her anymore, and his hand falls back—useless and _weak._ She starts to toy with some of the machinery beside him, but halts.

Panic flutters through his chest. “No-“

Dr. Kalonia looks at him with wide, shocked eyes, before she takes a quick step backward.

“Stop-!”

She doesn’t heed him, taking a few more steps and exiting the med room in a near run.

Anger makes Kylo’s head spin. He rolls his gaze into the darkness.

\--

A few hours later, a _droid_ is there to remove his ventilator. His electromyoclonic broadcasters. The other cables, wires, and machines keeping him alive.

The last thing it does is prod at his leg. Kylo musters up enough strength to telekinetically pick it up and hurl it at the wall. The droid collapses in a shower of sparks and smoke, lit up eyes dimming.

Sweating, and panting in exhaustion, Kylo attempts to sit. His ribs are tender, every inhale like a series of small knives perforating his lungs. He gingerly touches his side, feeling the new, risen scar going from hip to armpit—made, he knows, from the upward swing of a staff.

He keeps his thumb on the groove, looks down at the white bundle of bacta patches swindling his knee, and slams his fist into the bed.

\--

They send in another droid.

Kylo watches it with dark eyes, as it probes the tender skin of his knee. As it takes measurements and begins to identify nerve endings.

A prosthetic. They’re giving him a prosthetic.

He grips the edge of the bed hard, arms straining as the droid begins a graft.

The sound of metallic clicks fills the otherwise empty med room. His vision goes white in pain once the droid starts its work. Before he knows it, Kylo’s flinging his arm out again and _twisting,_ causing the droid to collapse on itself like tin under too much gravity.

\--

On the second day, he is able to sit without assistance. It’s the fifth medical droid, here to clean up parts of the fourth one and to also start final measurements and nerve grafts for his leg. He clenches his jaw in anticipation.

Then he feels _her._

He keeps his gaze trained on the medical droid, as it starts to undo the bacta bandaging. She walks in with small, dignified steps. Her presence painful, like a muted nova. He refuses to look at her, even when he senses her stand next to him and feels her gaze on the med droid prepping the grafts.

“Droids are expensive, you know.” Leia Organa’s voice is as dry as he remembers.

Kylo Ren just stares as the droid begins to graft. His mouth twitches, whenever it hits a particular nerve, but he keeps himself restrained. A demonstration of protest, maybe.

“Ben…” she says with a sigh, and he _doesn’t look at her._ “I know you’re hurting. I feel it.”

The sound of a drill. Kylo’s fingers dig further into the bed. “That’s not my name.”

Her small hand rests on his shoulder, cool and soft. It’s enough to-

_His fingers trail across his cheek, already cold-_

_-_ make him flinch.

“Talk to me,” Leia mutters. “Tell me what I can do.”

He takes a deep breath, one that fills his back with air and lifts his shoulders. He feels every twisted and broken thing inside him with the motion, the pain of it bringing clarity. Focus. He watches the droid start to attach the false leg.

“Do you treat all your prisoners of war to cybernetics, General Organa.”

She doesn’t lift her hand, nor does she move. Instead he feels her gaze on his profile. “Had an extra—turns out you have to buy them in bulk.”

His upper lip twitches with no humor. “I assume I am to be interrogated.”

Leia’s quiet. He feels her, edging into his senses with the Force. Trying to slip past the walls he’s spent decades crafting. He lashes back, slamming his will shut and banishing her presence from his.

“Thinking of me as a child will not do you any favors, General.”

“I have four med droids proving a different point.”

He feels his neck strain with the grinding of his teeth. “I have only grown stronger in the Force. You can’t keep me here.”

“I wasn’t planning on it.”

Kylo closes his eyes, refusing to give her anything more.

Leia’s hand falls from his shoulder. “…we’ll talk when you’re ready.”

“Or.”

“I don’t like contingencies.” Her voice softens, in a way that worms its way down to his stomach. “Do you want me to stay for it?”

Kylo looks at the droid. The cybernetic components. The false leg. The pink, scalloped edge of his knee. The muscles in his arms tense.

“It makes. No difference to me.”

Leia’s hand rests on his own. “Alright.”

She must nod, because the droid moves. Kylo clenches his jaw tight enough to pronounce the tendons in his neck as it transforms what is left of his limb into a matter of wiring. His breathing is ragged, causing new pains to blossom in his chest as all of his synapses flare. He feels the scar on his side throb, sweat stings his eyes.

And then it’s done. Where the bottom of his leg used to be is a shiny, chrome prosthetic.

“Leave,” he whispers.

Leia’s hand doesn’t move.

“ _Leave!_ ”

He hears the General’s shaking breath, feels her make her calculated retreat.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” she says quietly.

She withdraws her hand. Her steps are just as even and dignified on the way out as they were on the way in.

And Kylo Ren is left sitting in the dark, where he hears one desperate syllable echoing in his mind:

_Try._

\--

General Organa returns the next day.

For a long time, neither of them say anything. He keeps his back to her, she sits silently watching it.

He rests his elbows on his knees. “I have a request.”

She doesn’t seem surprised, but she’s wary. “What is it?”

“I want to speak to the girl.”


	3. Chapter 3

Rey watches the room—it’s something she can’t shift off, after so long at the Niima Outpost. She sees Statura fidgeting with his chrono for the fourth time—she guess it’d be worth an eighth portion. Admiral Ackbar’s eyes are drifting—easy mark, if someone was after it. Chewbacca, sitting next to her, gives a soft bark.

“No, I’m not sure either,” she answers, surprised that Chewbacca doesn’t know the reason for the debriefing. Rey has a theory about why they’re all here: Chewbacca, Finn, Poe, Statura, Ackbar, and Kalonia. They all have something in common, she thinks.

Chewbacca whines. And Rey knows that he has the same theory.

“Nothing like a good debriefing in the morning,” Poe says, with an affected sourness that Rey knows he doesn’t really feel. The older pilot yawns, bringing a mug of caf to his lips. Rey tilts her head at the characters scrawled across it: _Altitude Adjustment._

Finn sends her a questioning look. “Know why the General asked us here?”

Rey laces her fingers together on her lap. Statura has checked his chrono five times now. “I have an idea.”

“Let me guess, something to do with the rancor in the basement?” Poe’s tone is resigned, neither angry nor sad.

She nods, and tries not to think about it.

Statura checks the time for the seventh time when Leia finally walks in. The General looks tired, a rare thing for the woman who seems in dominatable. She stops when she gets to the center of the room, hands folded behind her back. Leia waits until all eyes are on her before she speaks, voice clipped and saturated with regal authority.

“I’m not in favor of mincing words. My son is currently being held captive in the basement of this facility.” Her gaze shifts slowly, landing on every person on the room. When her brown stare meets Rey’s, she sees it soften. “As everyone in this room knows, that means the Resistance currently holds Kylo Ren in its custody.” She nods to Statura.

He presses his lips together, but nods. In front of them, a hologram appears. It’s an astronav chart of the quadrant Starkiller Base was formerly located in. And it’s empty.

“Intelligence has confirmed that the First Order has retreated to the Unknown Regions,” he begins, voice crisp and polished. “Following the successful assault on Jagomir, where _The Finalizer_ was destroyed while docked.”

Tentative smiles break out in the room, and Rey feels not more than one glance directed at her, Finn, and Poe’s direction. The three of them had coordinated the assault, with Rey and Finn on the ground and Poe providing cover in the air. She knows it had cost them—a few of Poe’s fighters and several of the troops had died in the firefight.

“For now, the First Order is licking its wounds.” Statura glances at Leia. “Until now, we have been unable to press assault…”

“But now we have a possible source of new intel,” Leia finishes for him. Cold. Removed. “Kylo Ren would know forwarding positions and rendezvous points. He could be an asset to ending the First Order once and for all.”

“If he cooperates.” Someone in the back grumbles.

“If he cooperates,” Leia agrees. Once again she scans the committee room, until she finds the person who wilts under her gaze. “I want there to be no illusions—Kylo Ren is dangerous. He is able to use the Force, and it’s likely he will not cooperate peacefully.”

“Are you sure you’re not letting-?” One of the technicians, a man with curly blond hair, starts.

“I am absolutely emotionally compromised.” Leia’s tone is steel, and Rey is once again in awe of her. “But if anyone in this room thought, for even an instant, that I would allow my sentiments toward _my son_ to endanger the galaxy, you wouldn’t be here.” Her eyes narrow. “I have invited you here as a courtesy, but also to ask a favor. I do not intend to execute Kylo Ren while he remains in captivity.”

The room falls silent.

“However, I promise to you that I will do what is necessary to protect what is left of the Republic. Even if it means…” She presses her lips together. “In return, I ask for the promise of discretion. Kylo Ren’s true identity is not known to many. I, for personal and also security reasons, would like to keep it that way. For now.”

Leia steps forward. “Once again, this is a volunteer operation. I would not think less of anyone for leaving with this decision made.” She watches.

No one moves.

A tired, broken smile appears on her face.

“Thank you.” She inhales, a small window past the composure she carries like a crown, and clears her throat. “At the moment, Kylo Ren is in need of constant medical attention. I will reconvene this committee to discuss future actions once the situation changes. Dismissed.”

“Knows how to keep a room, doesn’t she?” Finn asks with a mixture of trepidation and awe.

“Always has,” Poe agrees.

They get up to leave together, and Rey is filing out of the room when Leia gently grabs the sleeve of her jacket.

“Rey, a word.”

\--

She stares at the door to the medcenter for a while, mouth dry and arms hanging loosely at her sides. On the other side of it, she can feel his presence—angry, hurt. Conflicted. It had been easier the first time, when she knew he was unconscious.

She doesn’t know why she’s down here. _Really_ doesn’t know why Kylo Ren would want to speak to her. Leia had said it was an option, that she understood if Rey didn’t want to speak to him. But Rey now has proof that she can hold her own against him if it comes to that, and anything that might help Leia or stop the First Order is something that Rey is happy to do.

She takes a breath, and nods to the guards. They press the control. The door slides open, and she walks in.

Kylo Ren sits with his back to her, dressed in a plain tunic and pants. From the bottom of the bed, she can see the glint of his new cybernetic, the toes of it dragging across the floor.

“Rey.” His greeting is as sterile as the room they’re in, carefully flat.

She folds her hands behind her, like she’s seen Leia do countless times. It slows down the jackrabbit race of her heart, and gives her the illusion of confidence that she doesn’t feel. She keeps to the edge of the room, mindful of the distance between them.

“I’m surprised you know my name.”

“How could I not.” He shifts, slowly swinging around to face her. He is still confined to his bed, it seems—his skin waxy and pale, dark eyes shadowed. “Your name is all I hear, these days.”

She’s not sure how to answer that. His stare has its own weight, one trained on her face as he looks up from his hunched over position. She’s not guilty, exactly. But on edge. Wary.

“You wanted to speak with me,” she states, when she can’t bear the tension any longer.

His upper lip twitches, as he shifts. There’s an awful, scraping noise as the cybernetic drags along the ground. “Yes.”

She watches him. The muscles of his arms cord as he moves again, and there’s a slight pull to his breath that indicates the pain he feels from the ruined ribs, the torn side. He does not break his gaze, doesn’t blink or turn away. Rey meets it, any unease she feels being replaced by something else. Frustration, maybe. Either way, she won’t let him gain an advantage in this room.

“I wanted to know…” he sneers. “Why you thought _this_ was merciful.”

“You want to know why I didn’t kill you,” she corrects.

Kylo Ren gives a slow nod of his head. “You wanted to. I could feel it in the Force. You had your lightsaber to my throat. So why…” he wheezes, expression tight. “ _Did you stop._ ”

She tilts her head. Truth be told, she wasn’t sure. Not until today, not until she saw the expression on Leia Organa’s face when she said _my son._ Rey takes a step closer, to demonstrate that there’s nothing he can do to frighten her at this point, in this condition.

“Because,” she says, “You owe people. You owe Finn, you owe Poe.” She narrows her eyes. “You owe Luke and Leia.”  Her voice breaks, slightly. “You owe _Han._ ” It’s simple, scavenger logic. It’s what she knows best. “And you shouldn’t get to quit when there’s still debts.”

His hatred is a potent thing, though she can’t tell who it’s directed at. He has so much _anger,_ and right now there’s nowhere for him to put it. “You kept me alive…to be used.”

Rey frowns. But she’s never been a liar, and she’s not going to start now. “Maybe. I don’t know. I just…” she sighs. “I just know that you’re not done yet, Kylo Ren.” Her face hardens. “That you have a lot to make up for.”

He sneers at her, and the lights flicker. “Is that what you meant.”

“Meant what?”

“With _try._ ”

The memory of the word hits her, as she remembers the first visit. With a tentative motion, she nods.

Kylo Ren’s gaze finally drops from hers. “Go.”

She doesn’t like being dismissed by a prisoner in his cell, but their desires are in a rare accordance with each other. Rey takes small steps back to the door, and pauses when he speaks once more.

“I want another duel.”

She rests her hand on the frame of the door, and darts a look back. Now, his face is different—still angry, but there’s a desperation there. A hidden plea to his words. She senses, almost tangibly, his hopeless desire to _triumph._

Rey tries to think. Tries to see the path ahead, as Luke has instructed her. Finally, she comes to a decision.

“Help Leia find the rest of the First Order, and we’ll have one.”

His eyes narrow. “And if I refuse?”

“I won’t fight.” _And you will never win._

“Then I’ll kill you.”

Rey shrugs.  
Kylo Ren’s fingers tighten into fists.

Taking another focusing breath, Rey faces forward and leaves the room without another word.


End file.
